Translation of Jose Maria’s Blog into English

Don Pedro

Due to the evolution
of the language, the hispanization of foreign nouns, and different
spelling errors, the surname O’Crowley is possible to find it written
in different ways, being the most common cases: O’Crowley, Crowley,
O’Crouley and even , O’Cronley. Having said that, we can begin to
talk about Dermot Crowley and Mary O’Donnell who, in 1727, got
married in the old Parochial Church of San Miguel, located in
Limerick capital. After that and, probably, due to religious
conflicts between Protestants and Catholics, as well as a period of
bad harvests, they left, from Limerick itself, towards the then
thriving and cosmopolitan city of Cádiz, in 1730.Both were born in
the province of Munster. Specifically, in the case of Dermot,
nicknamed Jeremiah, he was from Limerick County, and was baptized in
the Parish of Kilfinane. For her part, Mary, who belonged to Clare
County, was baptized at Kilfenora Parish. In the link did not
intervene or any capital, and both lived what Demetrio, hispanic name
of Dermot, managed to contribute with his work as a tailor. Fruit of
this couple was born, on February 21, 1740, the Cádiz-born Pedro
Alonso O’Crouley O’Donnell, the only survivor of the children they
had, as the rest died at a tender age. He was baptized on the 24th of
that month in the Church of Santa Cruz, also known as Old Cathedral.
It studied, first, in the School of the Company, until later, in
1749, the same year in which its father died, was sent to Senlis
(France), next to Augustinian monks, with which it learned Latin,
English, and French with an uncommon perfection. For its part, Mary
O’Donnell died in 1768.

Pedro Alonso
O’Crouley, merchant by profession, made four transatlantic trips to
the Port of Veracruz, corresponding to the years 1765, 1768, 1772 and
1776, being, in the course of the third of them, when he wrote his
book Compelling Idea of ​​the Kingdom of New Spain. On January
27, 1784, aged 43, O’Crouley celebrated his wedding with María de
los Dolores Power Gil, 19, born on July 13, 1764, and daughter of
Juan Power and Eugenia Gil, close to the personal circle of Pedro.
She was a young woman from Cadiz with Irish, Spanish, Belgian and
Dutch ancestors. Together with her husband she had 9 children between
1785 and 1802: María de los Dolores; Juan Josef; Antonio; Antonia;
Eugenia; Elena; Pedro Alonso; Katherine; and María Josefa.

One of the most
important milestones in Pedro’s life was having been recognized as a
noble. For this he resorted to the opening of a file of nobility,
alleging that his ancestors had been squires in Ireland. Also, he
managed to be part of prestigious institutions of the time such as:
the Holy Brotherhood of Toledo; the Real Sociedad Bascongada de
Amigos del País; the Edinburgh Antiquarian Society; and the Royal
Academy of History. In addition to his profession as a merchant,
O’Crouley stood out especially in his activity as an antiquarian, his
true passion, that earned him a greater recognition and for which he
has become mostly remembered. So, he came to house, in his palace
house, the current street Manuel Rancés No. 6, the well-known
Museaei O-Croulianei, the result of a personal collection composed of
valuable coins, cameos, sculptures and other museum pieces, where his
repertoire of paintings occupied an important place, being the same
as authors such as José de Ribera, Alonso Cano, Murillo, Zurbarán,
Rubens, Pablo Veronese, Van Dyck, Ribalta, Castillo, Céspedes,
Velázquez, Carreño, Carla Dolci, Laurent de la Hyra, Piombo,
Burgundian, etc. He left a good account in the annex of a work by
Joseph Addison, which he translated, adding a list with most of the
antiquities he managed to gather: Dialogues on the usefulness of
ancient medals.In a time of greater economic complications, marked by
epidemics and successive wars, he devoted himself to collecting
clippings about the War of Independence and the Cortes of Cádiz, a
material delivered in the Cádiz-based Seminary of San Bartolomé, as
he left reflected, the deceased father, Anton Solé. However, to this
day, the current direction of the center keeps closed the doors to
all kinds of investigations, denying in turn, the existence of such
documentary material, which would also contain handwritten letters
from Pedro himself.

Finally, about his
descendants, it is worth mentioning some of the most famous ones,
such as his own son Pedro Alonso O’Crowley Power, author of the
theatrical work El padre romano; her granddaughters Amalia O’Crowley
Sabater, author of El granto del verdugo, and Adelaida Riquelme
O’Crouley, director of the Normal School of Teachers of Ciudad Real,
Granada and Alicante, as well as of the Normal School of Central
Teachers of the Kingdom (in Madrid); his great-grandson José
Villalba Riquelme, Minister of Defense during the time of Alfonso
XIII; and his great-great-grandson José Villalba Rubio, a Republican
colonel in charge of the defense of Málaga during the Spanish Civil
War.